Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

I was promised a recession.

Infrastructure week. at last.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

This really is a full service blog.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

The revolution will be supervised.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

“woke” is the new caravan.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You are here: Home / Notes from the underground

Notes from the underground

by | 133 Comments

This post is in: 

I love stories like this:

Terra Vivos (which Mark wrote about in May) is a 135-person bomb shelter in the Mojave, a “Luxury Underground Community” that is the first of several to be installed in driving distance of major cities.

[….]

Buyers are drawn to Vivos for a variety of reasons. Jason Hodge, a 40-year-old former mechanic, says the promised air-filtration system was a major attraction: “I live 123 miles from Los Angeles, and I’m on the windward side of town. If a dirty bomb goes off in L.A., the fallout’s hitting my neighborhood within a couple of hours.” Steve Kramer, a 56-year-old respiratory therapist from Palos Verdes, California, is more concerned about post-apocalyptic raiders. He made his deposit, he says, after inspecting the bunker’s hardened-steel doors, which are strong enough to repel a tank blast.

These are the Galtian superheros who will repopulate the earth after the moochers and looters destroy civilization.

(h/t Zifnab)

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  3. 3.

    Martin

    Repopulate the earth? They’re the first ones to run away! They’re going to be too chickenshit to ever leave the fucking place, and that’s assuming they don’t kill themselves off thunderdome style.

    Any women stupid enough to sign up to live in the rape bunker?

  7. 7.

    Dennis SGMM

    It’s comforting to know that there will be some nice, plump, Randians to roast after the apocalypse.

  9. 9.

    jacy

    Yikes. Anybody else having flashbacks to Beneath the Planet of the Apes, where all the snuggly-clad psychos hid out in the the New York Subway system and worshiped an atomic bomb?

    Maybe once they’re all in their underground bunkers we can just shove a chair under the doorknob so they can’t get back out again.

  10. 10.

    eastriver

    Haven’t these dumbfucks figured out that when the hammer comes down, the first person’s to the shelter are going to close the door after themselves and not let anybody else in?

    BECAUSE THESE ARE THE KINDS OF PEOPLE WHO BUILD SHELTERS.

    The math is simple.

  11. 11.

    Culture of Truth

    Actually this sounds kind of cool. I might sign up myself, I mean it’s got the air filtration and the steel doors which are perfect for…um…

    ..what is this for again?

  13. 13.

    Culture of Truth

    Does it have sewage disposal?

    Oh c’mon you know you were wondering. That’s what people ask the astronauts.

  15. 15.

    ericblair

    Just tell these peeps that this community is actually an Obama Gummit Plot to get all Galtian heroes in one place so they can take their gunz and 1920’s rare! find! gold coins and lock them forever in the ground. And then build an abortion clinic on top of them.

  17. 17.

    Martin

    You know, this isn’t a bad idea. We should build one with a big vault at the bottom for them to hoard their gold coins for that post-apocalyptic economy. And then we just take their coins.

    Capitalism!

  19. 19.

    Joshua

    You know, even as somebody who traveled to Washington DC and walked to the Jefferson Memorial in Fallout 3 cosplay, I’m pretty sure these guys are taking their fandom a little too far.

  20. 20.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @Mnemosyne:

    Dang… beat me to it…

    One of the smartest, funniest movies ever made…

    Well, you don’t think I’d go into combat with loose change in my pocket, do you?

  24. 24.

    kth

    um, what do they plan to do for water? For 135 people they’ll basically need a thousand gallons a day. And last I heard, it doesn’t rain much in the Mojave.

  25. 25.

    Hunter Gathers

    Actually, this might not be a bad idea. When one of President Palin’s kids (Track, Bristol, Pistol, Crystal Meth, or whatever the fuck their names are) ‘accidentally’ pushes the big red button while playing couch cushion fort in the oval office, at least these pasty fucks have somewhere to hide. Looks like I’m going to have to brush up on my ThunderDome skills.

  26. 26.

    KCinDC

    I see some possible flaws with paying for a service where you won’t actually know what you’re getting until after the total collapse of civilization. What incentive do those taking the money have not to skimp on the building and supplies? Are people going to sue them after the apocalypse? Might even be a better scam than cryogenically preserving corpses.

  27. 27.

    Culture of Truth

    See also, 1980’s nuke war tv shows, that movie with Brendan Fraser, every other Twilight Zone episode.

  29. 29.

    Chyron HR

    Fools. If they all gather together in one place it just makes it easier for the irradiated super-Mexicans to kill them.

  30. 30.

    Sad_Dem

    “But what about a hoard of zombies?”

    The hoard of zombies would already be on the inside. The zombie horde, on the other hand, would be on the outside.

  31. 31.

    freelancer

    We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when 5
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats’ feet over broken glass 10
    In our dry cellar
    Shape without form, shade without colour,
    Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
    Those who have crossed
    With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
    Remember us – if at all – not as lost 15
    Violent souls, but only
    As the hollow men
    The stuffed men.
    […]
    This is the dead land
    This is cactus land
    Here the stone images
    Are raised, here they receive
    The supplication of a dead man’s hand
    Under the twinkle of a fading star.
    […]
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper shitload of sporadic Second Amendment remedies.

  32. 32.

    chopper

    yeah, no smarter place to be once all your food and water has run out than the mojave desert. brilliant location.

  33. 33.

    Jay in Oregon

    @kth:

    um, what do they plan to do for water? For 135 people they’ll basically need a thousand gallons a day. And last I heard, it doesn’t rain much in the Mojave.

    Quiet, you! Reality has a liberal bias!

  34. 34.

    Jay C

    Really, isn’t this all out of Schlock-TV Plot # 509-k or whatever? Nutcases hole up in a bunker and tell their captives comrades that there’s been a bomb attack, or a plague or something: and one (usually the spunky blonde) finally gets out – only to find that everything’s normal (bloody action mayhem usually ensuing)?

    Somebody’s really been reading too much fiction…..

  36. 36.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @Dennis SGMM:

    Dehydrated water?

    Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet…

    Bet that takes up a lot less space than the fresh stuff…

    What’s its half shelf life?

  38. 38.

    Dennis SGMM

    Waitaminute, the Mojave? I camp in the Mojave, likewise Death Valley and Joshua Tree. There are people running around in the Mojave who could and would open up that shelter like it was a can of pork and beans then dispose of the contents in ways that will make the shelterites wish that they’d enjoyed the apocalypse at home.

  40. 40.

    Legalize

    Christ, what a racket. It’s the “grown up” version of sofa pillows and refrigerator boxes. They’re buying fort space.

  41. 41.

    Jager

    @jeffreyw:

    Who is going to take care of the angry bastards who refuse to give up their weapons when they check in? And another thing, how can an inhalation therapist afford to live in Pacific Palisades? And what’s a former mechanic, who is 40, doing for a living now?

  42. 42.

    Svensker

    Not Galtian. Heinleinian. Wonder if they all plan to have big knives strapped to their hairy thighs?

  45. 45.

    Zifnab

    @Dave C: That’s the first thing I thought of when I read it.

    The second being, “Gee I hope they have a full hydroponic facility or a metric shit ton of dried goods down there”.

  47. 47.

    Legalize

    I wonder how hot a metal bomb shelter would get full of X number of souls out in the desert. I assume they have AC.

  48. 48.

    Jay C

    I really admire the Terra Vivos’ management’s careful planning:

    Vicino says he has 5,000 additional applicants on file but that he is being selective in order to create a balanced community. “You wouldn’t want 200 doctors in one facility and no plumbers,” he says. “If the toilet breaks, that could be a real disaster.

    Or, for that matter, the washer(/dryer?) that features prominently in the linked model apartment bunker photo. Guess they DO have the water issue worked out (or is that why they need the plumber?)

  49. 49.

    BGinCHI

    Is this what the main character is hiding from in McCarthy’s The Road?

    In other words, the zombies aren’t the product of the bomb (or whatever) but the descendants of these brainless survivor-types.

  50. 50.

    Sad_Dem

    “I camp in the Mojave, likewise Death Valley and Joshua Tree. There are people running around in the Mojave who could and would open up that shelter like it was a can of pork and beans then dispose of the contents in ways that will make the shelterites wish that they’d enjoyed the apocalypse at home.”

    QFT

    Doesn’t The Art of War or some quote by General Sherman address the issue of why giving up mobility is a bad idea?

  52. 52.

    Comrade Dread

    Awesome, so after the apocalypse, when their water chip fails, or they go psycho from the Vault-Tec experiments, we all head over there and raid their vault for power armor and plasma rifles?

  53. 53.

    Legalize

    Inside of 15 minutes the people in that thing would be like the creatures running around on the ship in “Pandorum.” De-evolution would be fast and fierce.

  55. 55.

    fasteddie9318

    I wholeheartedly endorse this idea, and urge them to get to their shelters as soon as possible and lock themselves inside. After all, once the actual apocalypse arrives, it could be too late. Better to beat the rush. Then I believe the rest of us can employ Sloegin’s solution.

  58. 58.

    Gravenstone

    @Dennis SGMM:

    The builders have assured them that they have laid in large stocks of dehydrated water.

    At a Boy Scout regional gathering at Wright-Patterson AFB circa 1977, we sent one poor schmuck halfway across the camping area in search of “dehydrated water”. Because “left handed smoke shifters” had been so played out by then…

  59. 59.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @Dennis SGMM:

    ***face palm…***

    Of course… of course… you just add ***WATE-… …***

    Hmmm… mebbe we need to think this thru a little…

    ***scratches head…***

    Saaaaaaaaaaay… mebbe we could just whip up some water… mix a little hydrogen and and oxygen together… they’re both easy to come by… what could go wrong there?

  60. 60.

    Legalize

    @MattR:
    I bet that’s what Obama is planning on spending money on when the tax cuts expire.

    Teatard bussing.

    Worth every penny.

  61. 61.

    georgia pig

    I can see one of these morons driving up to the place and finding the door bolted — “. . . but I have a contract!”

  62. 62.

    Culture of Truth

    It’s a grow-up version of a binkie.

    They need their shelters and their gold supplies until a white man is back in the White House

  63. 63.

    Svensker

    @Jay in Oregon:

    Especially the women?

    No, the women will dimple adorably will being slapped on their well-rounded buttocks by the knife strappers, before decking the evil zombies with a secret karate-type hand chop known only to veterans of the Alpha Centauri wars.

    You need to read more Heinlein.

  66. 66.

    burnspbesq

    I’m curious as to how the guy from Palos Verdes thinks he’s going to get to the Mojave Desert from there in the panic and congestion that would inevitably result from any event that would make evacuation advisable. It will take him three hours to get as far as Long Beach.

  72. 72.

    jayjaybear

    These are the Galtian superheros who will repopulate the earth after the moochers and looters destroy civilization.

    I thought the moochers and looters already tried. Oh, wait…you mean the ones that aren’t on Wall Street.

  73. 73.

    Comrade Dread

    @Dave C: You’ll change your tune the first time you meet a Super Mutant wearing a torn, faded, and drool stained Palin/Beck 2012 T-shirt shouting about how the Democrats want to give driver’s licenses to Ghouls.

  74. 74.

    nancydarling

    Can’t remember where I read it, but after September 11th, a cocktail party subject was how to get out of DC if there were an attack of some sort and all the highways and exit routes were grid-locked. One solution they considered was buying canoes or kayaks and escaping via the Potomac. Don’t know if they actually bought the water craft when they were stocking up on duct tape, etc.

  75. 75.

    BruceFromOhio

    These are the Galtian superheros who will repopulate the earth after the moochers and looters destroy civilization.

    They’ll go perfectly with a nice demi glace and a bottle of shiraz.

  76. 76.

    licensed to kill time

    What a great bunch of self-selected fools to share the post-Apocalypse with!

    I don’t want to go to there. /Liz Lemon

  79. 79.

    uloborus

    Is this another case of conservative projection? Armageddon is believably coming because THEY sure as Hell would push the button?

  80. 80.

    General Stuck

    These are the Galtian superheros who will repopulate the earth after the moochers and looters destroy civilization.

    I’ve saying for years, this country has a serious post apocalyptic repopulation bunker gap.

  81. 81.

    New Yorker

    @nancydarling:

    Don’t know if they actually bought the water craft when they were stocking up on duct tape, etc.

    Ah, duct tape. Thanks for reminding me of that tragicomic episode. I was living in DC at the time and will never forget the panhandler I walked past on Connecticut Ave. who was talking about how he “couldn’t afford homeland security, please donate to my duct tape fund.”

    Lewis Black’s routine on duct tape was great too (extremely NSFW):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYyb485KewY

  82. 82.

    uloborus

    @ruemara:
    Oh, so we’re talking POST-senility Heinlein? When he went from ‘preachy 12-year-old’ to ‘unable to remember which book he’s writing’?

    I shouldn’t mock. My skin crawls at the thought of having that happen to me.

  83. 83.

    Jay in Oregon

    @Svensker:

    I’ve actually read quite a bit, though it has been a while. I thought the books were entertaining, but not in a “Gee, I want to live there!” kind of way.

    I would have made a bad Randroid had I ever been forced to read Atlas Shrugged in my youth…

  84. 84.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @jrg: Ya can sign up for a shelter and hide from the coming hoards of undead or you can do what I’m doing and practice to become a lethal zombie killing machine.

  85. 85.

    Larv

    Maybe this is all just a promotional gimmick for the release of Fallout:New Vegas? The Mojave isn’t too far away from the setting…

  87. 87.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    These are the Galtian superheros who will repopulate the earth after the moochers and looters destroy civilization.

    Not if we seal the doors shut after they run in.

    Alternately, we could wait until they’re all in there and locked down tight. Then shout down the vent system that one of their new roomies for life is a big ol’ queen and a stealth ACORN thug. Once the shooting ended we could go in and help ourselves to whatever.

  89. 89.

    Teacherboy

    Thank god someone else got to it, but I simply cannot get the idea out of my head that someone out there just played Fallout 3 a bit too much and is trying to recreate Vault 101.

  90. 90.

    Eric U.

    One of Pournelle’s early post-apocalyptic novels had the heroes drive to their rural sanctuary only to be run off by the people that got there first. Given his current level of teabaggery, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had bought into this bomb shelter.

  91. 91.

    burnspbesq

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:

    Not if we seal the doors shut after they run in.

    This is an excellent plan. We need to stash earth moving equipment and explosives nearby for just this eventuality. Anyone have a storage space in Barstow that we can rent?

  93. 93.

    Anoniminous

    As a former ABC tech I can tell you the single best place to be after dirty bomb goes boom is … downwind.

    (not)

  94. 94.

    MattR

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:

    Alternately, we could wait until they’re all in there and locked down tight. Then shout down the vent system that one of their new roomies for life is a big ol’ queen and a stealth ACORN thug.

    There’s got to be a way to turn that into a reality show.

  95. 95.

    Aet

    This actually sounds like a Vault-Tec experiment.

    ————————————

    Lock 135 survivalist-mentality individualists into a confined space that requires socialist organization to manage.

    Vault 936: Control Group

    Vault 937: Issue triple personal weapons complement

    Vault 938: Remove personal weapons complement, replace with ten times kitchenware complement

  96. 96.

    SpotWeld

    Why do I get the feel that at some point in the future, after a short horrible and eventually difused modern-day Cuban Missile Crisis someone will eventually check on this landlocked ship of fools and find them all dead of a pathogen spread by an improperly sanitized phone handset?

  97. 97.

    quaint irene

    On ’30 Rock’ last night they mentioned a couple post-apocalyptic professions. ‘Traveling bard’ and ‘radiation canary.’

  98. 98.

    Mark S.

    He plans to stock each Vivos bunker with a freezer full of DNA samples of as many species as he can collect.

    Yeah, then you just unfreeze them, put them on a petri dish and boom! you got an elephant.

  99. 99.

    The Bobs

    Where are they getting electrical power for this place? They may be able to make a blast proof door for the entrance, but how are they going to protect the PV/windpower generators that must necessarily be on the surface? Putting it on the grid sort of defeats the whole point of this place and geothermal can’t work without a cold and hot water supply. My guess is the yahoos who sign up for this place are way too stupid to consider such things. Plus, aren’t PV and wind generators “hippie” power and thus unusable?

    Still, the really important question, as Dr. Strangelove pointed out, is what is the female/male ratio, and have they stocked Viagra?

  100. 100.

    thomas Levenson

    I wish my brain could process the daily escalation of pure weirdness with which we are surrounded.

    The only thing I like about this is the likely redistribution of cash from wingnut true believer to Marjoe-esque scammers.

  101. 101.

    thomas Levenson

    I wish my brain could process the daily escalation of pure weirdness with which we are surrounded.

    The only thing I like about this is the likely redistribution of cash from wingnut true believer to Marjoe-esque scammers.

  102. 102.

    thomas Levenson

    I wish my brain could process the daily escalation of pure weirdness with which we are surrounded.

    The only thing I like about this is the likely redistribution of cash from wingnut true believer to Marjoe-esque scammers.

  104. 104.

    Catsy

    @Eric U.:

    One of Pournelle’s early post-apocalyptic novels had the heroes drive to their rural sanctuary only to be run off by the people that got there first.

    Lucifer’s Hammer. Such a great book. And one of the rare ones that actually had potentially useful concepts in it, like the guy who preserved sealed books like The Way Things Work in his empty septic tank so that civilization would have a head start if the Hammer really did knock us back to the stone age.

    Good times.

  105. 105.

    Jon H

    Anyone else thinking of the Golgafrincham B Ark and its load of “the useless third of the population (consisting of hairdressers, tired TV producers*, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitisers and the like) were packed into the B-Ark, one of three giant Ark spaceships, and told that everyone else would follow shortly in the other two.”

  108. 108.

    Carol

    @Jay C: I can fill in the rest of the story. Everythings gone back to normal, except for one thing: all of the people running the new civilization are black, with the brown people second. Since all the people that the Galtian types looked down on couldn’t run to the shelter, they went about remaking the world in their image. The spunky blonde has a choice: go back to paranoia or join the new reformed (and usually better and more civilized world). She decides to stay, and that’s where the plot begins for real….

  109. 109.

    gregw

    @Svensker:

    You need to read more Heinlein.

    This is always a truism. I still go back and read some of his old stuff. Stuff I read as a kid in the 50’s.

  110. 110.

    goblue72

    Shhhh….this is the perfect alternative to Ship “C” from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Instead of needing to lauch a spaceship filled with these nutjobs, we just let them do all the work themselves. They build their bomb shelters, the rest of society organizes a fake “dirty bomb” hoax and they go hide themselves forever.

    Just need to figure out how to avoid the whole mutant killer virus from an unsterilized telephone thing…

  111. 111.

    RSA

    __

    Vicino says he has 5,000 additional applicants on file but that he is being selective in order to create a balanced community. “You wouldn’t want 200 doctors in one facility and no plumbers,” he says. “If the toilet breaks, that could be a real disaster.”

    I’m glad that they’re letting in some Deltas and Gammas. O brave new [underground] world that has such people in it!

  112. 112.

    Carol

    @goblue72: Meanwhile the rest of us go about the business of actually achieving the social justice those people tried to deny us. They get out, and America is just like Sweden with more diversity. Disgusted that we have a fully social democratic safetynet, legal weed, and free mass transit, the Galtians take a look around, are disgusted, and go back to the bunker. The rest of us throw down some food and seal the door shut and figure time will take care of the rest.

  115. 115.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Catsy:

    I liked the surfer who figured that if he was going to die he was going to do it in style and ride the big wave inland as far as possible. I liked the description of his view of the ground as he rode the tsunami inland and how it was going so well…

    until he plowed into a high-rise apartment building.

    As was noted above, all you need to do is spotweld the door shut and our problem is solved! Of course I really like the idea of shouting into a duct that ‘one of your roomies is a big gay queen’.

    After welding the door shut, of course.

  116. 116.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Vicino says he has 5,000 additional applicants on file but that he is being selective in order to create a balanced community. “You wouldn’t want 200 doctors guys in one facility and no plumbers hawt chicks,” he says. “If the toilet breaks we need someone to screw, cook our meals or do laundry, that could be a real disaster.”

    Adjusted 4 Akyurasee.

    I’m not trying to be a dick, but when I try to imagine, for example, my sister’s reaction if my brother-in-law suggested buying into something like this, all I can picture is my b-i-l staggering around clutching a bloody nose.

    It just looks like something that registers a 15 on the scornful eyeroll scale.

  119. 119.

    Kelrian

    Those guys better watch it. Their water system might break one day and then they’ll have to send someone out to wander around California looking for a new one.

    /Fallout nerd

  121. 121.

    manwith7talents

    I always like to point out that these are not people who are afraid of the apocalypse. They’re actually looking forward to it, much like Christians who are looking forward to the rapture. I got the same vibe from a lot of people after 911 who were stocking up on survival gear. They weren’t afraid of another attack, they were hoping there would be one so they could use all of their cool gear.

  122. 122.

    quaint irene

    Dehydrated water for the win.
    Laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair.

    Not so farfetched. Remember the various freak-outs leading up to the supposed Y2K disaster ten years ago. When people were being advised to sock in emergency supplies of food; dried beans, rice and pasta were top of the list. Course nobody could explain how you’d be able to cook any of those without access to clean water or a fuel source.

  123. 123.

    General Stuck

    @quaint irene:

    Real survivalists would have a urine still, and a lotto for who has to sacrifice their 98 percent body water, when piss comes to shove.

  125. 125.

    Mike G

    These are the Galtian superheros who will repopulate the earth after the moochers and looters destroy civilization.

    A civilization designed by the acolytes of Ayn Rand would feature 10 Mexicans doing all the work, and 190 assholes in pinstripe suits trading derivative contracts on their output.

  128. 128.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @New Yorker:

    I sometimes think I went into the wrong business. There’s a fortune to be made in exploiting the paranoid idiocy of the FOX News crowd.

    I’ve been trying to figure out a business idea to do just this, the profits of which would be funneled to liberal Democratic candidates and officeholders and organizations such as the ACLU.

  129. 129.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    A civilization designed by the acolytes of Ayn Rand would feature 10 Mexicans doing all the work, and 190 assholes in pinstripe suits trading derivative contracts on their output.

    Would you like your Internet delivered or will you take it with you now?

  130. 130.

    Jon H

    “in pinstripe suits trading derivative contracts on their output.”

    Nah, they’d be wearing those tacky jogging suits.

  132. 132.

    Li

    I love that they are telling us where their shelter is before hand.

    Should make pouring the concrete into their air vents _much_ easier.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks